N7DF wrote:
> This subject seems to be a perennial issue that comes up around the beginning
> of the contest season
>
> For me the RS(T) report, while meaningless in itself, acts a convenient
> placeholder in giving and receiving the contest exchange.
I have been a previous advocate of sending my location but
Christiansted, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands is a bit long in qsb and
qrn on topband. Heck, it took me 20 minutes last night to convince a
Russian station I was *not* K4VFZ after he was convinced I was. Yet
there would be a great solution to sending the "meaningless" feel good
report on 160 and that would be IMO location, location, location. I
would like to convey to all that KV4FZ is in the Virgin Islands no in
Florida or Kentucky.
Grid Squares are one way in doing this and they work fine in the Stew
but not really useful for some locations without a computer to
correlated the nearest city and country. Many stations I worked in the
Stew warm up had no idea what i wanted in the exchange when I sent GS
GS? Grid? Grid Sq? they just sent a CQ zone. For normal QSO's Rome
and Paris are easy but..... how is this done without difficulties in
more remote areas? I mean if someone tried to tell me they were in
Banja Luka, Bosnia-Herzegovina I would probably not have solid copy
anyway with the tropical QRN here. But my suggestion is to start to use
Airport codes which most major cities or regions already have. This
passes quickly good information, needed information as in my case I
don't have a QSL card from there, and it can be done with only 3 letters.
Does this make sense? STX for St. Croix, SJU for San Juan, MIA for
Miami, FAR for Fargo, PDX for Portland, LGW for Gatwick, FRA for
Frankfort. Every QTH is within some reasonable distance from an
airport. This 3 letter universal international airport code could
replace the useless RST and send some meaningful intel.
Maybe the only way to get this started is to fashion a 160 meter contest
where the airport code is a multipliers. Not quit as difficult as the
grid square computations but still a possibility for a good DX contest.
Just a thought.
Cheers,
Herb Schoenbohm, KV4FZ
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160 meters is a serious band, it should be treated with respect. - TF4M
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